SOURCE: Goldstein, Laurence. “‘The Audience Vanishes’: Frank O'Hara and the Mythos of Decline.” In The American Poet at the Movies, pp. 151-74. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994.

In the following essay, Goldstein contends that O'Hara effectively addresses the crisis in the movie picture industry in the late 1950s in his poetry.

Gi; “to the Film Industry in Crisis” =~ S“to the Film Industry in Crisis”

Not you, lean quarterlies and swarthy periodicals with your studious incursions toward the pomposity of ants, nor you, experimental theatre in which Emotive Fruition is wedding Poetic Insight perpetually, nor you, promenading Grand Opera, obvious as an ear (though you are close to my heart), but you, Motion Picture Industry, it's you I love! In times of crisis, we must all decide again and again whom we love. And give credit where it's due: not to my starched nurse, who taught me...